6-03-2009 @11:36 PM ~
Gracias Companero Rosalio for putting matters in a more enlightened context!
I remember meeting Larry Itliong and hearing about Fred Ross. I was a youngster
in the Brown Berets about 18 years old when I first went down to Delano as part
of a Food Caravan down there.
So many good people are woefully ignorant about labor history in general.
I thought Cesar was too reluctant to offer up alternative more aggressive
methods of struggle back then, but the UFW remains and the Brown Berets
faded away. I have grown and kind of mellowed over the years. I can see
now the way Cesar was handling things was the best way to go, though I
heard he was not the meek humble man many saw when it came down to
conducting Union business and handling his staff.
I only wish he would of written more than he did... writings have a way of
out living their writers.
In waging war, be it spiritually based or not, not tangible tactic can be
discounted and the art of war requires looking at all possible tactics
and trajectories. Nowadays I see the validity of 'means' being appropriate
to 'ends' and do not believe that the ends justify the means or in any means
necessary, especially when mass mobilization has not been done on an on-
going basis, especially when there is not collective consciousness among the
masses and especially when La Raza as a unique people do not even have a
common terms for themselves that almost all can agree with in discussing
political-social matters, though, La Raza is understandable by many Chicanos
and Latinos it can have a negative connotation and Latinos is male gender.
I am comfortable with 'gente de el sol'.
Our strength, besides our numbers, is our diversity as a complex people of
many ways, different cultures and generally honest hard working people.
We do not riot, we can make bloody revolution, but we want to bring about
the necessary transformation as peacefully as we can in order to avoid any
future resentments by the descendants of anyone.
All the wars men have fought and there is still no social peace. Surely a new
approach is needed by vanguard leadership.
Education for Liberation!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka: Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Yahoo Email: peter.lopez51@yahoo.com
http://anhglobal.ning.com/group/humanerightsagenda
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetworkAztlan_News/
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From: Rosalio Munoz <rosalio_munoz@sbcglobal.net>
To: PETER S LOPEZ <peter.lopez51@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 3, 2009 5:22:27 PM
Subject: Re: FYI: UFW Alums On Opposite Sides in Battle For Labor's Future
| Peter here is a response of mine I sent to Portside which ran Shaw's article Regarding UFW Alums On Opposite Sides in Battle For Labor's Future by Randy Shaw -Talking Union -- Posted on June 1, 2009With friends like Randy Shaw its harder for Mexican American and other workers to take on their main enemy, corporate America. In his article on the HERE-SEIU conflict Shaw overstates the severity of the conflict, which is serious, but ignores the tremendous unity of labor in the election of Obama, in the fights for a stimulus plan, the seating of Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor, the growing strength (the New York Times and Wall Street Journal to the contrary not withstanding), in the fight for the Employee Free Choice Act and an immigrant worker friendly comprehensive immigration struggle. Yes there are important issues to resolve, more democracy as well as disciplined unity in labor, the workers especially with success on the greater issues, will work out the problems, especially with such wonderful leaders as Dolores Huerta and Eliseo Medina. I read Shaw's recent book on the UFW, Beyond The Fields, and found it rich with information but poor on understanding. Shaw says that key decisions by Cesar Chavez were decisive in the weakening of the UFW and not the changes in the correlation of forces in the class struggle world wide which set back workers globally for three decades. While agribusiness and farmlabor struggles are important, the main battle field is more metropolitan in factories, health facilities, harbors etc, etc, the return to more agressive tactics and mobilizing of the community established by left trade unionist before the McCarthy era was an important contribution of the UFW movement and union organizing, we are just now catching up where labor left off. I have raised my concerns about Shaws take on these issues with him a few times and now feel compelled to share one of my main criticism of his work I told to him. If he had written a book "about the Virgen de Guadalupe Juan Diego would turn out to be named Fred Ross." For those not familiar with UFW and farmworker history Ross was an Industrial Areas Foundation profesional organizer who helped initiate the Community Service Organization the Mexican American civil rights group where Cesar learned about organization and who helped Cesar organize and run the UFW. Ross played an essential role in the history. But so did others like Ernesto Galarza, Larry Itliong, J.J. Rodriguez and countless communists and other progressives. Oh Shaws predominately references white activists in the UFW who helped establish and propagate innovative tactics. Just check out his books index for Spanish and English surnames. Historical progress develops dialectically, or as Cesar might say the "Lord works in mysterious ways." Monday morning quarterbacking it seems to me we are likely better off so many of the organizers went on to the labor and democratic struggles all over the country for virtually all progressive causes since Reagan was President than focussing solely on the farmworker struggle. The internecine fights between HERE and SEIU need to be resolved for the best, but we should not let them take our eyes off the prize which Shaw's critique tends to do. La Union Hace La Fuerza!, Si Se Puede! --- On Wed, 6/3/09, PETER S LOPEZ <peter.lopez51@yahoo.com> wrote:
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